T
he cost ofelectrical energy
is a heavy burden for many
households to shoulder, but any
effi ciency savings that consumers make
are soon swallowed up by the escalat-
ing costs charged by power utilities. A
recent discussion in our forum area on
EEWeb (www.eeweb.com/forum/cat-
egory/epe-magazine) highlighted the
disparities in power prices levied in
different countries; our friends in the
US pay about $0.10 per kWh or half
the cost that we Brits are forced to pay,
while Australians and New Zealanders
tell me their unit costs are roughly on
parity with UK prices but they face far
higher ‘standing charges’ every month.
Lamenting the lumen
In the hope of reducing electricity bills,
the author has, like many readers, taken
the plunge by replacing many old incan-
descent lights with modern LED bulbs.
The lighting market faced turmoil when
awful fi rst-generation compact fl uores-
cent tubes were the only alternatives
available, but thankfully LED technology
has come on in leaps and bounds, and
buyers now enjoy more choice than ever.
Some trial and error is to be expected
as some promising-looking LED bulbs
offer disappointing levels of output in
practice, leaving buyers ruefully com-
paring ‘lumens’ against good old watts.
A wide range of ‘LED fi lament’ bulbs
are also sold that mimic gloomy vin-
tage-style bulbs, but are probably best
kept for ornamental use.
I probably should have bitten the
bullet sooner. It can be hard to throw
away a few dozen perfectly good, paid-
for, incandescent light bulbs – especially
traditional-quality ones that might even
contain a Ballotini fuse, unlike the
cheap end-of-an-era imports that I was
now throwing away. Should one wring
every last minute of working life out
of a light bulb (due to the ‘Sunk Cost
Fallacy’) until it blows, or write them
off today and start benefi ting from im-
mediate and ongoing savings instead?
Behavioural economic theory explains
that ‘sunk costs’ represent cash that has
been spent and cannot be recovered
masts springing up in his locality. He
worried about the risks of electromag-
netic radiation on his health, and had
taken the extreme steps of lining his
attic with chicken wire to protect the
household from potentially harmful
emissions generated, so he thought, by
some nearby phone masts that menaced
his property.
While most of us take wireless-based
communication for granted, others have
genuine concerns about the associated
health risks. In the worst cases, some
claim to suffer from electromagnetic
hypersensitivity (EHS) and find life
near overhead pylons, phone masts
or electric cables unbearable. Unfor-
tunately for them, the growth of radio
traffi c in an overcrowded radio spec-
trum continues unabated: we live in a
cloud of electromagnetic smog, and life
for EHS sufferers or my friend living in
his home-made Faraday cage could be
about to get worse.
In wireless communications the buzz
word of the moment is ‘5G’ and the tech
markets are queuing up to bring us the
fi fth generation of network hardware.
5G potentially operates at several giga-
bits per second with near-instantaneous
latency values, reports the independ-
ent website 5GUK Ltd (www.5g.co.uk).
Apart from enhancing mobile services
the 5G industry claims it could also
control IoT devices or even driverless
cars, thanks to 5G’s high speed and su-
per-responsive nature.Net Work
Alan Winstanley
Alan Winstanley says dodge the ‘Sunk Cost Fallacy’ of keeping fi lament bulbs and embrace the
brave new world of LED lighting – plus, 5G and microsatellites are about to change our digital world.
under any circumstances. Hence the
pain – investment in those treasured
old fi lament bulbs can be considered as
‘sunk’ and gone for ever, and the only
benefi t in keeping them until they blow
is to postpone the inevitable cost of re-
placement, whilst all the time costing
ten times more to run than LEDs do.False savings
Not wanting to throw away old lighting
is a human, emotional and hence total-
ly irrational thing. The same question
taxes many British local authorities as
they ponder converting high-pressure
sodium street lights to those migraine-in-
ducing LED bulbs that pierce our streets
with their icy fingers of ‘cold’ light.
Many enlightened councils have con-
verted their street lights to LEDs, but
some cash-strapped councils switch
off street lights early to save money in-
stead! For consumers, online auction
sites are bursting with LED bulbs, some
of them of very dubious quality, being
unmarked and unbranded and perhaps
with phony CE marks. They can have
very poor heat dissipation properties
or suffer from early failure due to pen-
ny-pinching with cheap components
or poor design. For consistent perfor-
mance it’s probably best to stick with
reputable brands. A useful cost-sav-
ing calculator is provided online by
Philips, for example, who manufacturer
one of the world’s most comprehensive
ranges of LED bulbs, see: http://bit.ly/
pe-may19-nw
Simply dial in the power, shape and
base fi tting and typical savings will be
displayed. A huge range is sold by Lamp-
shop Online, CPC, LEDbulbs.co.uk,
BLT Direct and others. If you haven’t
invested yet, then now is a good time
to convert to LEDs and start making
some immediate savings. Having said
that, I noticed that one of my new long-
life LED bulbs has failed after just a few
months. So much for progress!5G – go for throttle up
An old acquaintance lives in one of Brit-
ain’s largest cities and he had become
alarmed by the growth of mobile phoneHTC has pre-announced their 5G Mobile
Hub, one of the fi rst 5G consumer
peripherals to hit the market.